


Scars

by theLiterator



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Brothers, Case Fic, Dick really died, Forever Evil arc, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kid!Fic, Kidnapping, Post-Death Fic, Sex Work, Strippers & Strip Clubs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 05:04:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5116592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/pseuds/theLiterator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damian refuses to accept that Grayson is dead, which is why he's the first (and only) person to investigate when a stripper wearing his face turns up out of seemingly nowhere. When this not!Grayson disappears, Damian decides it's up to him to find him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Forever grateful to my betas: [allourheroes](http://archiveofourown.org/users/allourheroes), [foxyk](http://archiveofourown.org/users/foxyk), and [traxits](http://archiveofourown.org/users/traxits), without whom this fic would have stalled out at 6500 words (and at 9800 words but let's not talk about that) and to whom I dedicate this damned mess. Please forgive all remaining mistakes as they are mine and mine alone.
> 
> Secondly, thanks to my artist, [impalafortrenchcoats](http://impalafortrenchcoats.tumblr.com) who gave me the exact art I wanted (Stripper!Dick and Damian holding a toddler!!) and is awesome and patient with my horrific procrastination and inability to time zone. When she's finished putting the polish on the final piece, I'll embed the last image. Each embedded art has a linkback to her masterpost, and there is a link to it in the endnotes, so _please_ let her know how awesome she is.
> 
> Thirdly, some notes about the fic itself: this fic was actually entirely an excuse for me to write Damian carrying a toddler Tommy Grayson around with him to places like board meetings, and also to write a reunion fic that isn't terribly happy. I focused a lot on the sibling relationships, as I am prone to doing, so that means this fic isn't as shippy as it possibly could have been.
> 
> While Dick Grayson died in this verse's version of Forever Evil, this fic is not actually death!fic so much as life!fic, and about how your family is _yours_ whether you like it or not.

It had been 5 years, and even as Damian handed the bouncer a fake ID and a hundred dollars to overlook how fake the ID was, he thought maybe it was high time for him to give up on his pointless crusade.

The rest of them would have tried to stop him if they knew—not that that was any indication, for the others often tried to stop him from doing things, saying that he was 16 and a child and therefore too young for... many things. The others, of course, would never know.

Not this.

Not the secret hope burning in his chest that he might one day follow a lead much like this one and find _him_ alive and whole.

The hope is paltry now, however, so that he only follows up leads like this out of a sense of duty—if _he_ could come back to life, so could Grayson, and so, here he was.

A gentleman's club—except Brown had explained to him, once, in embarrassing detail, the difference between a gentleman's club and a strip joint, and he was fairly certain this particular establishment was more along the lines of the latter.

A waitress wearing very little brushed past him, and he bit his lip against saying anything to her; it was her _job_ to ignore his personal space. He had given it over upon entering the club, the same way she had.

He feigned confidence and headed directly for the bar, ordering a coke on the rocks with lime, which Brown always ordered for the two of them when he was pretending to be of-age in a bar, and the familiarity was reassuring.

He took his drink to the main stage and bullied his way through to the front, fidgeting with the roll of bills he had in his pocket and worrying about the way the condensation from their collective drinks was getting all over the stage—it seemed dangerous.

More so as the first dancer strode out on stage in dangerously high plastic heels, though she didn't seem to notice or care about any of them or their drinks.

Damian mimicked the behavior of the people around him, feeling the crowd ebb and flow as the dances and dancers changed according to some unknown DJ's taste, waiting—

Waiting.

When the lead took the stage, Damian could hardly believe it, and this man was the reason he was here—

 _Shoulders_ should not be so arresting as to take his breath, not when completely nude people of every variety had been on this very stage already and not caused his pulse to even stutter, but these—

If this man wasn't Grayson—

Except that he turned, and his eyes were a familiar warm blue, his smile was that exhausted wan thing that he'd often turned on Pennyworth when he'd forgotten he couldn't lie to the man.

When his shirt came off, it revealed a familiar expanse of skin with scars enough to belong to Grayson, though only a very few of them were _right_.

Damian's hands were balled so tightly into fists his nails were cutting into his palms, and he remembered, belatedly, that he was paying for this service, and he forced himself to unclench his hands and unroll what was left of his cash, carefully folding a fifty into fourths and reaching up to slide it, greatly daring, into the elastic of Grayson's only remaining garment.

Grayson's eyes locked with his, and there was _nothing_. No spark of recognition, no amusement or shame or anything to indicate that Damian had caught him out, and that—

To say it hurt would be a vast understatement, and Damian was overly familiar with many kinds of pain. The way Grayson looked through him as blandly as he did the other patrons was like being stabbed all the way through, all over again, and having the sword drawn back out from his chest slowly, taking his lifeblood with it.

Damian couldn't stand any more of this, of Grayson-but-not-Grayson, so he tossed another bill on the stage and pushed his way out of the crowd surrounding it.

"Another coke?" the bartender asked.

"Scotch," Damian corrected coldly. "Neat."

The bartender snorted. "Not likely, kid. The only thing legal in this joint is the liquor license, and I ain't risking that."

Damian inclined his head and considered brandishing his fake ID, then decided against it. He would finish his coke, and then he would leave, and forget all about this Grayson who was not Grayson.

Except—

A horrifyingly familiar voice murmured low and hot in his ear, "Hey, babe," and the warmth of a chest against his shoulder. "You want me to show you to a private room?"

"Hey, Ricky—" the bartender started, but Grayson cut him off.

"That was you who dropped the Franklin, right?" Grayson said, and Damian thought it might be more reassurance for the bartender than a question for him. "I'm pretty observant, and I'd hate to find out I was wrong."

Damian swallowed hard. He managed to nod, and the bartender helpfully nudged his coke closer. Damian seized it and took a long sip, and still he couldn't come up with anything to say.

"It's okay if you're shy," Grayson said, and Damian forced himself to turn, to meet his gaze. "I like the shy boys best."

The smile that stretched Grayson's lips was warmer than the one he'd worn on stage, but no more real. Still, Damian could no more resist it than he could Grayson’s voice, so familiar and sorely missed.

"Of course," he said finally. What it was an acknowledgement of, he could not have said. Grayson, or 'Ricky' who was not Grayson, took it as good enough, though, and took Damian's drink in one hand, his arm in another, and drew him off.

The private room was hardly worthy of the name—there was a cheap, bonded leather armchair at the center of it, and a beaded curtain across the doorway. A camera kept silent watch with its red indicator from one corner, and the bass from the club's music thrummed through the room.

"How... how much do I owe you?" Damian asked, vaguely aware that one paid up front for this sort of thing, probably from Brown's instruction.

"I should let you guess," Grayson said, winking, "But that's not really fair. Call it forty, up front, and anything _extra_ you feel I'm worth after."

Damian reached into his pocket and handed Grayson the first two bills he had, and the way Grayson eyed them, and then him, had him on high alert.

"So, sugar," Grayson said in a low purr, stalking close enough that Damian had to take a step back, and then another, until the chair was behind his legs and he had to sit in it or overbalance. "What can I get you?"

"Grayson," Damian whispered, and it wasn't at all what he'd meant to say, and moreover it was the _wrong_ thing to say, because Grayson's expression shuttered blank, so he was no longer that seductive parody of himself, and still he was not _Grayson_.

"Look, kid," Grayson said, and he sounded so _tired_. "Richard Grayson is dead. He seems like he might have been a pretty good guy, depending on where you fall on the masked vigilante debate, but he's _dead_ , and I'm not... him."

"Yes, you are," Damian said with a surety he did not feel.

Grayson paced in front of him, then stopped, whirling to face him.

"It doesn't matter. You wouldn't—I'm _not_. I mean, I am; I was, but not _here_ —I wasn't _Nightwing_."

Damian nodded. "Your scars aren't—they aren't right." He bit his lip against anything more, and then Grayson sighed, and bent to kiss his forehead. It was a very _Grayson_ gesture.

"You should go home, kiddo," Grayson told him. "Go home, and forget about me. I'm not him. I'm sorry; I wish things were—" He drew back, shook his head, and then, as he left through the beaded curtain, he called. "Thanks though; I don't get many big tippers."

Damian shivered at that, at the _implications_ , and he had to strongly resist the urge to call Grayson back, to empty his pockets and hand everything he had on him over. Grayson wouldn't like that, would probably give the money away to someone else, and—

And Damian had to go change, so he could figure out just what _this_ Grayson was.

***

Grayson was squatting in an abandoned apartment building just a few blocks away from the strip joint, Damian learned.

He lost sleep over the next week, stalking Grayson, learning his habits. He seemed to work odd jobs during the day, and he had a small child who was often being looked after by any number of the other tenants of the abandoned building; some, like Grayson, were strippers. Others engaged in more intimate work.

Some in the building pushed drugs, and Grayson never left the child with them; Damian took that as a hint and started building cases on them.

It grew more and more clear that this Grayson was _not_ , in fact, their Grayson, and Damian had to fight to keep himself from breaking down. Even with his father away on a mission, there were eyes in every room of the Manor, and he didn't dare lose control in the field, so there was simply no opportunity for him to give into weakness.

Still, the man he was following was _a_ Grayson, and he was living in intolerable conditions, though it was clear he was doing the best he could with what he had; namely, an identity, a genetic profile, and a face that belonged to a famous dead man, a toddler, and an amazing body.

Damian could respect it, but he did not like it.

He hovered on the edge of indecision for another week, growing wearier and closer to breaking every day, until Grayson deviated from his routine.

He didn't come home. He didn't pick up the child. He wasn't anywhere in a block radius; a five block radius; a mile.

Damian could feel the panic boiling under his skin, and he found a perch where he could watch the woman Grayson had left the child with pace and grow increasingly concerned, and then desperate.

Damian knew she, too, had to go to work, and he knew that even one night staying in would ruin her precarious financial position.

He didn't consciously make the decision; he simply dove down to street level and entered the building, still in uniform.

Her door was shut and the knob and lock were both much newer than the rest of the building.

Her face was grim. "Robin?" she asked, with none of the skepticism of those who crime had never touched, and none of the fear of a criminal. "What—I don't know anyone to squeal on, okay? And I've got—"

"A child. I'm here for the child," Damian told her. "He—I'm looking for his father, and you've done more than anyone could possibly ask of you."

"He gonna be one of you?" she asked, frowning. "That's how it works, right? You take the kids no one wants, and you turn 'em good?"

Damian shivered and shook his head, then nodded. "I don't know," he said honestly. "I—I am sorry. I'm going to find G—to find his father, and then I'm going to... solve this case."

She gestured him into her apartment, and while he'd seen it through the windows from several angles, it still shocked him how bare it was, grubby and with the carpet ripped out, the cabinet doors all missing.

The child was sitting in a portable playpen, an old set of blocks cast aside in favor of the crying fit he'd taken up about 15 minutes before Damian had decided to act.

He leaned over the side of the bed and caught him into his arms up inexpertly.

He started crying louder. Damian reached up to toggle his comms, and said "O, are you there?"

"Always, Robin. What's up?"

"I need a pickup at this location," he said. "The motorcycle will not be adequate for my current needs."

"I can hear that; what's going on, R? You want backup? Batgirl's about 15 blocks east of you, and the Red Hood is on the other side of town."

"Pickup only," Damian growled. The child's sobbing was taking on desperate tones, the sobs turning into hiccups. Damian adjusted his hold and the child buried its face against his neck, muffling its own noise.

"Pickup's on the way. Red Robin's got a new assignment too; you're welcome."

Damian cut off his comms and tried to smile at the woman.

"Is Ricky in trouble?" she asked, her mouth twisted up like she wasn't sure what answer she was hoping for.

"Not with us," Damian replied. "I'll find him," he added. "I promise."

She forced a smile, and Damian left her like that in her tiny, stolen apartment, as the child got to the stage of crying where it only let out an occasional moan, too tired for much else.

Outside was chillier than Damian liked with the child wearing so little, so he tucked his cape around it and huddled in the scant shelter of the doorway, waiting for pickup.

***

The child fell asleep in the car, and Damian hardly dared breathe for fear of waking it, and Pennyworth did not ask him any of the questions he probably deserved to be asked.

"I think there is a Grayson from another universe here," Damian said after the silence grew too heavy. "This is his child."

"I see," Pennyworth said, with much less censure in his tone than Damian probably deserved.

"Well, as long as one of us does," Damian replied acidly. "He didn't know me."

"Presumably, he never met his universe's version of you. Why do you suppose he came here?"

Damian had considered this at length, and had decided, "Because our Grayson is dead. I expect he'd hoped to pick up the identity and find a new city where no one knew him, which proved impossible, given—"

Damian did not realize he'd flinched until Pennyworth made a gentle noise of agreement. He rubbed the child's back, and it huffed against his neck.

"And I presume something has happened that made you decide to kidnap his son?" Pennyworth asked after several moments.

"He's gone missing, and I can't find him. The sitter he normally uses needs to work, and we can certainly offer adequate care."

"Robin, you know we all respect your head for strategy," Pennyworth said.

Damian nodded, waiting for the rebuke he knew was coming.

"However, it seems to me that this alternate Grayson may have had his reasons for not seeking us out. Not every universe ends up with heroes on the side of good, you know."

"You think I don't _know_ that?" Damian demanded, suddenly hotly furious. "You think I don't _understand_ that visitors from other universes, other timelines, other— _anything_ —might be _evil_?"

 _They took him away from me and I can never get him back,_ he thought to himself, an admission he’d never before made that hurt both more and less than he expected.

He hid his face in the child's hair.

"He loves his son," Damian whispered. "He can't be evil if he loves his son, can he?"

Pennyworth sighed but offered him no answer.

No one ever could answer him when he asked that question.

***

It was at Pennyworth's insistence that they confirmed Grayson's identity using the child's DNA, though Damian had already snuck a sample to run for himself, and Oracle agreed to run the comparison again so it wasn't sitting on their computers, waiting for his father to stumble upon the information and come rushing home.

None of them had discussed keeping this from his father, but they were all of a mind on the matter, which reassured him. He had chosen correctly, then, when he'd kept this from them before.

Finally, when Oracle confirmed that there was no footage of Grayson disappearing, not even on the cameras inside the club where he worked, Pennyworth ushered him and the sleeping child upstairs.

When Pennyworth made as if to open up the nursery, Damian's grip on the child tightened and he took a step back. "He can't be alone; he won't know what's happening to him."

Pennyworth nodded slowly, his gaze sharp and critical on Damian, who was entirely too old and too big to hide behind a sleeping toddler, though he angled his body like he might.

"I'll just get some things, and we'll set him up in your room, then, Master Damian," Pennyworth said soothingly. "There's a portable crib, and he'll need clean pyjamas. How about you go on ahead and clear a space for him?"

Damian nodded and fled. He wasn't comfortable setting the child up on his bed where he might fall, so he settled him on a cushion on the floor while he moved his favorite reading chair out of the way so he'd have a clear view of the child from his own bed, and then he settled down on the floor next to the sleeping child and stroked his back, trying to remember everything he'd noticed about Grayson's routine, trying to decide where the most likely spot he'd disappeared from was.

Pennyworth appeared a few moments later, and immediately set to setting up a playpen much like the one the child been in before. Damian memorized his movements in case he ever needed to do something like this in the future.

***

"You think it prudent for me to take this child with me to a board meeting?" Damian asked, watching in fascination as the child mashed a fistful of toast into his mouth.

"I think that if you don't want your father to realize he's here, it's your only option," Pennyworth said, nudging the warm, wet cloth in Damian's direction.

Damian obediently took it up and got the chunks of banana and toast out of the child's hair before they dried there. He didn't dare apply it anywhere near the child's mouth, since the last time he'd tried that, the child had tried to eat the cloth too. It seemed he was very single-minded at mealtimes.

"And when he reviews the notes from the meeting? Or overhears the gossip at his next round of golf? Or the camera footage of the Manor from the last twelve hours?"

"This will buy you more time than letting him see the boy face to face," Pennyworth said. "We are, after all, expecting his return in the next day or so." There was exhaustion creeping into his voice, and Damian felt responsible for that.

"Of course," Damian said. "You are as wise as ever, Pennyworth. Of course he should come with me. I'll drive myself. Us."

He turned back to the child to keep from blushing at his own idiotic rambling.

"No, habibti," he told the child. "You _eat_ the banana, you don't listen to it." He picked up the cloth again.

***

Drake noticed the child around the midway point of the commute to Wayne Tower, and his eyes went wide with surprise before narrowing with recognition.

"That’s Dick’s kid," Drake said, sounding skeptical of even his own conclusions. Damian scoffed.

"Of course he is," he said, patiently offering the child another toy for teething. He was very particular in his tastes, though his discomfort was obvious, and he threw that one at the divider as well.

Patiently, Damian sorted through the remaining toys in the cooler. "How about a duck, habibti?" he asked. "Do you like ducks?"

"This is surreal," Drake said.

"This is my nephew," Damian replied firmly.

"You know he’s too young, right?" Drake asked, wary eyes never leaving the child’s face. (It turned out the boy did like ducks.)

"Grayson is here," Damian said coolly.

"Oh yeah?" Drake asked. "Where. Because all I’m seeing is a kid who bears a startling resemblance to him. Damian—you didn’t _kidnap_ this baby, did you?"

Damian settled into his seat and stared at the child who was happily gumming at the duck teether. " _I_ did not kidnap a child," Damian intoned.

Drake gave him a skeptical look.

"Robin, however, may have done so."

"Damian!" Drake snapped. "You can’t just—you can’t just _take_ kids! Look, we’ve all... been patient with you, about... about _this_ , but it _has_ to stop. Dick is _dead_. He’s not coming back, no matter how many times you get partial facial matches, no matter—"

"I know that!" Damian shouted. The child dropped his duck teether and started fussing. Damian collected it and dusted it off on his suit trousers before handing it back to the child, who threw it away again immediately.

His face was scrunched up and turning red, and Damian freed him from his car seat to soothe him in his lap.

"Hush, habibti," he murmured, shooting glares over the top of his head in Drake’s direction. "We’re not shouting at you."

The child sighed and settled into Damian’s arms, chewing on a fist in lieu of a teething toy, and Damian let himself breathe for a few moments.

"Believe me, I know now that he is—that Grayson is truly gone. But there is _a_ Grayson in Gotham, and he’s gone missing," Damian said, knowing that as loathe as he was to invite Drake’s brand of interference, he couldn’t very well _keep_ the child, and the fastest way to fix this _mess_ would be to find Grayson, or _not_ Grayson, or whoever, and bring him home, safe and sound.

"Damian," Drake said slowly. "What the hell is going on?"

Damian glared at him, and the child sighed into his hair, relaxing further into Damian’s secure embrace.

"Dami, don’t make me call Jason. I will so totally call Jason, you know I will."

Damian sighed too, and then shut his eyes and started at the beginning; the ping in his facial recognition program, and the trip to the strip-joint.

***

[ ](http://impalafortrenchcoats.tumblr.com/post/132320593871/art-submission-for-this-years-dcu-bang-story)

"No," Stacy said coolly before they could enter the boardroom.

"What?" Damian asked, hitching the toddler higher on his hip and scowling at her.

"No, you can’t take the baby with you. I’m not going to do the weird mom-slash-nanny-slash-aunt thing and demand to know why you have a baby, but I’ve got to draw the line somewhere." She frowned at them and set her nail file down, which made Damian swallow in... nervous anticipation.

"Uh," Drake said. "Why?"

"Because. The Demon Wayne isn’t very demonic when he’s hauling around a 2 year old," Stacy said. "And it isn’t like Mr. Fox invites you to board meetings because he wants the board to think ‘aww, how sweet’ and coo at a 2 year old."

"What," Damian demanded, narrowing his eyes dangerously.

"Yeah, that. Exactly. Except with less adorable toddler. He’ll be perfectly fine out here. I’m a girl; I’ve been babysitting my whole life." 

She disentangled Damian from the child, and he couldn’t resist the urge to squeeze his shoulder and murmur, "I’ll be back, habibti," before letting her take him away entirely.

"I have an important role at Wayne Enterprises," Damian informed Drake primly as they continued past the executive offices and into the boardroom.

"Of course you do," Drake replied, distracted by his phone.

"Fox does not solely invite me for my intimidation tactics," he told Drake.

"No, he doesn’t. You’re sixteen; you’re hardly intimidating. Wait. What?"

"Exactly," Damian said, shoving open the door to the boardroom so violently it crunched through the plaster.

He glared darkly around the room. Once this _business_ was cleared up, he’d be free to resume his search for Grayson. Drake would perhaps not be a hindrance, too.

He just needed to survive the next hour.

***

"You said you wouldn’t inform the Red Hood if I told you the whole story!" Damian accused as he caught sight of Todd in the executive assistants’ office, in full costume, crouched on the floor next to the child.

"What?" Drake asked, tearing his gaze away from his phone. "Oh. Shit."

"So," Todd said, looking up at them from behind the blank facade of a domino. "Cute kid. Wanna tell me what’s up?"

"No," Damian said, storming across the room to collect the child, who was chewing on his fist again.

"Damian thinks he found Dick," Drake said. "Or an—" he sent a wary glance in Stacy’s direction, then shrugged. "An alternate universe version of him."

"And the kid?" Todd said, smiling a sparking, murderous smile as he focused on Drake. Damian sighed and casually worked his way back into Todd’s line of sight. It would never do for Todd to harm Drake in broad daylight.

"Damian kidnapped him when his fake-Grayson disappeared."

Todd hmm’ed, and Drake shrugged, which Todd took as his cue to stand up and stretch. "Cool," he said. "When are we getting started?"

"No," Drake started. "No way in _hell_ am I working with you on this, this is _insane_ , and you are supposed to be—"

"The voice of reason?" Todd asked sweetly, hands going to his thigh holsters.

Damian sent a glare in Stacy’s direction, now knowing that she had to have been the one to inform Todd of... current circumstances, and turned his body so he was directly between Drake and Todd. "Not in public," he snarled to the two of them, and the child tensed in his arms and started whining.

He sighed, and Todd reached for the kid. Damian informed him with a single glance exactly how dire his end would be if anything should happen to the child, and Todd informed _him_ with a tilt of his chin and a jerk of his shoulder that he would hardly allow harm to come to an innocent child.

"We’re leaving, Stacy," Damian said coldly, twisting Drake’s elbow in an armlock and forcing him back toward the elevators.

"Always a pleasure, Mr. Wayne, Mr. Wayne, Mr... Hood," she said with false cheer, and Damian slammed a fist into the down button for the elevator.

***

Returning to the gentlemen’s club with Jason Todd was something that until earlier that day, Damian would have said he would never voluntarily do.

Todd still had on his trademark leather jacket and armored clothing, openly carrying his handguns.

Damian trailed behind him like a recalcitrant child, not because his role demanded it but because he would rather go literally anywhere else.

"Hey," Todd said to the bartender, who held up his hands.

"I never served him; only soda. I’m not stupid, okay, I wouldn’t serve to minors. It’s not like that here."

Todd grinned wryly, curving a warm hand around the back of Damian’s neck. "This kid? No, don’t worry about him. Worry about Ricky—you wanna tell me where he is?"

"Ricky? He didn’t show up for his shift tonight," the bartender said. Todd dropped a roll of bills on the bar.

"Come on, you can do better than that," Todd said, leaning forward and leering at the man.

The man snorted. "Believe it or not, you don’t actually scare me, I don’t care what kind of rep you’ve got. This isn’t your territory; everyone knows you stick to—"

Damian launched himself over the bar and got him in a submission lock, so he was panting and trying to ease the pressure on his joints. "You’re right," Damian said in a growl that perfectly imitated his father’s voice. "It’s mine. Where. Is. Ricky."

"Fuck!" the man gasped, and Damian twisted just a little harder. Todd’s face was glowing with approval and a fierce, dark enjoyment. Damian forced himself to relax his grip at that: he was many things, but he was not at _Todd’s_ level.

"Look," Todd said conversationally. The whole club had gone silent and everyone was watching the two of the them rough up a perfectly ordinary bartender. Damian resisted the urge to sigh. "No one wants to shed any blood here. Actually, I’m lying. I don’t consider a night a success until I’ve shed a couple pints, and the kid’s weapon of choice is a fucking _sword_ which isn’t exactly conducive to a blood-free night. Personally, if Ricky is dead or alive or whatever? Not a big issue. But the kid? He’s invested. So if you know something, you might consider telling us. And if you _don’t_ know something, well—"

Todd shrugged. "You’ll be a good example for anyone who _does_ have good info."

"He—it’s Ted. He likes to... he gets good money for the ones no one’ll miss, and Ricky stopped pulling enough to pay his stage fees after the first month, okay? Come on, I don’t have anything to do with that—"

Damian saw red and slammed the guy’s head into the bar; once to knock him unconscious, and then a second time because it had felt _good_.

"Dami, come on, kiddo. We’ve got more heads to knock in, come on," Todd was saying as he carefully pulled him off the bartender.

"They sold Grayson," Damian said, feeling completely bereft of emotion. The red had melted away entirely, and he—

"Jesus fucking Christ I can’t handle this shit _and_ you looking exactly like B when he gets all het up. Come on, I need a smoke and we’ve got to get to this Ted guy before he gets too far out the back."

Todd stuck a cigarette between his lips and wrapped his free arm around Damian’s shoulders while he lit it. Damian knew from their perusal of the layout earlier in the evening that the long corridor down which Grayson had led him only two weeks ago led to a fire exit off a back alley that wasn’t covered by any cameras. Damian shivered, remembering how much money he’d left and wondering about ‘stage fees.’

"What does a stage fee entail?" Damian heard himself asking, and Todd sighed and stopped, yanking Damian into a fierce, uncomfortable hug that stank of leather and blood and cigarettes.

"Fuck me, I changed my mind, Timmy can go to the strip club with Damian, I’ll do recon around the apartment with Batgirl," Todd said in a nasal tone, then he squeezed the back of Damian’s neck painfully tight.

"It’s just a way for assholes to fuck over the strippers who do the job because it’s a nice, legal way to make money that doesn’t require papers or a background check or a drug test. Don’t worry about it—this club is going to be experiencing new management very shortly; shorter if B gets wind of this; I think he has more liquid assets than I do this week."

"How much," Damian murmured.

"I dunno, it depends on a lot. Some places even do it as a percentage of tips or whatever. Obviously not the case here. Can we—look. Let’s figure out who the hell is trafficking in people in your part of the city and then we’ll worry about the ethics, legality, and abuses inherent in sex work, kay, baby bat?"

Todd only ever called him baby bat when he was genuinely emotionally wrapped up in a particular topic of conversation, so Damian didn’t inform him he’d meant ‘how much would buying this club cost?’ and instead tore himself free of the awkward and frankly worrying embrace.

"Fine," he snarled, and he stalked down the hall, not waiting to ensure Todd would follow him. Besides, _he_ hardly needed backup. Not for this.

He’d only informed them as a _courtesy_ , and Todd was pushing the bounds of his patience.

***

Ted was a bleeding wreck on the pavement and Todd was looking at Damian with concern in his gaze.

"Damian," he said, then he sighed. "You..." he shook his head. "If you were anyone else, I’d offer to pull the trigger for you, get it over with, but, and I’m not saying this as a fucking compliment, because it’s possibly the worst thing I can think of to tell someone, but—"

Todd bit his lip, shook his head, and tapped his comms. "Hey, Oracle. Can we get police and an ambulance to our location? Give us an ETA so we can book it, too. One of us is pretending to be a real boy today, and..."

"Failing?" Oracle suggested over the comms, and Damian shivered at the mingled amusement and censure in her tone. "How’s the baby, Robin?" she asked.

"Pennyworth has the care of him," Damian said stiffly.

"Excellent. You guys heading in for the night, or am I going to be sending Black Bat out to clean up your swath of destruction?"

"We’re fine," Damian said.

"I haven’t seen Cass in _ages_ ," Todd said.

Damian glanced over at Todd, who had a studiedly unconcerned expression and his arms crossed across his chest, and then he looked back at Ted.

He had to admit that Cassandra wouldn’t be unwelcome.

***

Cassandra arrived with Damian’s costume, and reluctantly he put it on. He didn’t _want_ to be Robin in this, constrained by mercies and ideals and rules that he was not sure he could abide by, not in _this_ , his one chance to avenge Grayson.

But he _was_ Robin, and he _was_ his father’s son, the same way _his_ Grayson had been, so he suited up and forced himself to smile for Cassandra and Todd, who smiled grimly back before they departed to pursue the lead Ted had given them.

The warehouse wasn’t all that difficult to find, though it was like most other warehouses on the docks, dark, molding, fortified and surrounded by hired thugs.

Before they split up to take them out, Cassandra pulled him in to hug him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as tightly as she could.

"It’s okay," she said, which didn’t help as much as he supposed he could have hoped it might, but it did _help_ , so he nodded against her shoulder.

***

Dick woke up in the dark again, staring at the ceiling above him, with its rusting panels and holes that let in clouded night sky, and worried about Tommy.

He knew it would make more sense to worry about himself, or even some of the kids trapped with him, chained up in lines on the bare concrete floors, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop thinking about Tommy.

Would Tamar have kept him? Would she have called the police or dropped him off at a fire-station? He was young enough and sweet enough that he’d probably get adopted Dick thought, except.

This was Gotham, and Gotham had no real room for a bright-eyed boy who liked books and hated when his block towers crashed apart.

"Told you to stop thinkin’ ‘bout him," the girl chained next to him said. She’d said her name was Marietess earlier. She had a two-year old too, even though she was at least ten years his junior. He tried _really_ hard not to think about _her_ fate. At least his would probably be something involving death and his organs; hers almost certainly would be worse.

"Sorry," he whispered. She’d told him she could tell, and it made her think of her Rosa, but—

"I just hope he’s safe," he whispered. "I know, I know you said it’s stupid. But I’d be okay with all of—" he trailed off, not wanting to gesture and rattle the chains. "This, if I knew for certain he was okay."

Marietess sighed. "Yes," she agreed. "Me too."

He squeezed her hand, and they both pretended to be sleeping as the guards wandered in, bullshitting about past jobs.

One of them kicked Marietess, and Dick snapped into action without really considering the consequences, rolling to intercept a second blow, struggling to his feet to glare at him.

"Leave her alone," he snarled, feeling wild and not quite himself.

"Looks like we’ve got a volunteer," the guard said. "Bring him on back."

***

Damian watched from a catwalk as Todd made his way through the rows of filthy, frightened people, keeping an eye on the approaches, just in case.

"He’s not here," Todd reported, and Damian silently to the floor.

"Impossible," Damian snarled.

"Look," Todd said. "Operations like this, the weakest points are when the cargo isn’t being moved, like this warehouse, so you transport people as soon as you can. He—it’s not unlikely that he’s been moved already."

"He?" a girl said from the floor next to them, and Damian turned to her, crouching and pulling his water bottle from its spot on his harness to offer her.

He thought maybe she wasn’t much older than himself, and from the dark fury on Todd’s face, he’d decided the same thing.

"Thank you," she murmured. "You are looking for Dick, yes?"

Damian nodded shortly, and Todd sucked in a harsh breath. "Shit," he whispered, and Damian realised that Todd hadn’t truly believed him until this girl had offered unasked-for confirmation.

"They took him to the office an hour ago," she said, hugging herself. "They were going to take me again, but he made them mad, and they took him."

"Thank you," Damian said. "The police are on their way."

She tried to hand him back his water bottle, and he ignored it, drawing back so he could exchange glances with Todd and then head for the office.

"Don’t kill anyone," Todd said, and then he laughed, like it was a joke. Damian’s hand shook where it gripped the bo Cassandra had brought him in lieu of his usual katana, and he thought perhaps it wasn’t very funny.

The door loomed large in his vision, and he calmly thumbed off his comm.

***

The door they dragged him toward seemed larger than it ought to be, but Dick was perfectly content to blame that on the fear working its way through him.

He wasn’t sure what he’d been thinking; except for how sure he was.

He couldn’t have let them drag the girl back here a second time, not when she could barely move from whatever they’d done to her in the first place; he knew it was stupid and contrary, when he’d been thinking death was a better fate than what she was facing, but—

Death at the hands of these mercs and thugs was just as impossible for him to think about, so here he was, balking as the guards forced him forward roughly.

Inside was an ordinary office; maybe a little bigger than a warehouse office might be in a city who had more legal activity than criminal on its docks, but Dick had seen more malevolent spaces.

Even as the guards roughly stripped him of his clothing (which wasn’t hard; he’d been wearing sweats and a t-shirt when they’d grabbed him) he couldn’t help but make note of the location. A stapler on the desk might be a potential weapon, that chair in the corner was wobbly, no one had watered that plant in a long time.

Some of the guards left once they realised he wasn’t going to put up much of a fight, and _that_ was typical Gotham as well.

Some people were in the business because they were sadistic creeps, and some people were in the business because it was a paycheck and rent kept soaring ever higher.

He thought, suddenly, of the kid who’d known his alternate self. He’d had the vibes most of the creeps gave off, all carefully sheathed violence and dark energy simmering just below the skin, but he hadn’t been _like_ them at all.

He hadn’t even touched Dick’s skin when he’d slid that fifty in his g-string, which took a special level of talent and an exercise in self-control that guys like these, the ones shoving him to his knees so they could _hurt_ him, had never even considered mastering.

Dick was just as glad that kid wasn’t here as he was glad _Tommy_ wasn’t, but, bizarrely, he kind of wished he _were_.

***

Grayson was in the room, Damian registered. There were others, of course, because it would make no sense for him to be in the office alone.

Damian swung his bo first against the man holding Grayson down, and was momentarily thrown when, freed, Grayson did nothing.

The bullet that tore through the meaty part of his shoulder brought him back to the fight at hand, and he turned, disarming the man to his left, careful not to lose control, though Todd, who’d entered at some point after the gunshot, had no such compunctions it seemed.

"Dami," he snapped, once everyone was unconscious in the room.

Damian ignored him, and moved to Grayson’s side, checking his pulse, then checking for spinal injury before rolling him into the recovery position.

Grayson’s eyes flickered. "Oh," he whispered. "You’re Robin."

Damian nodded, squeezing his hand. "I found you," he said, though that must be terribly obvious.

"I should have made that leap, I guess," Grayson said, squeezing back. "Was he the first?"

"And the best," Damian agreed quietly.

Todd seized his shoulder, then, and Damian reacted with violence, barely interrupting his counter-attack in time to keep from hurting him.

"Dami!" Todd said. "You’ve been shot."

Damian glared at him, then looked down. The wet stain of blood seeped down his front, and he frowned at it, confused.

"Armor-piercing rounds," Todd said, and then he put pressure on the wound, and Damian grabbed his wrist, trying to pull him off and ease the sudden, white-hot pain.

"Grayson," he snarled. "We have to help—"

"You have to lay down," Todd said. "Batgirl and Red Robin are on their way, and you’re leaking blood like it’s going out of style. Hold still," he added, fishing, one-handed, in a pouch, and withdrawing a field-dressing.

"I despise you," Damian informed him crisply.

"Ditto, baby bat," Todd replied.

***

Dick had been confused when the kid showed up after all—maybe he’d been wrong about him? Or his situation? Except that this kid had used a staff to knock out the thugs who’d been enjoying their time alone with the merchandise, and that meant he wasn’t with them.

Probably.

The other person with him had called him Dami, and that wasn’t a particularly obvious nickname.

"What’s his name?" Dick asked, fingers twitching in the lax grip of the slumped, unconscious kid who’d just saved him.

The other person started laughing and laughing, a sort of crazed, mad laughter that didn’t seem at all appropriate for the question.

"What gives, Hood?" a blonde woman demanded as she came into the office with them. "Oh, shit, Damian’s dead," she said, crouching to check his pulse. "Or dying. Well, the Boss is gonna be unpleased either way. O, you copy that? We need pickup on the double."

Grayson liked that. Damian. As a name for the kid, it really worked, he thought.

"You okay, Dick?" the blonde asked.

He shook his head.

"Dizzy," he said. "Confused."

"Well," she said. "No one’ll blame you if you pass out. Your kid’s fine, by the way."

"Oh," Dick said. "Okay."

He smiled at her as reassurance, and let the blurry edges of the world take over his vision, fingers still loosely twined with _Damian’s_.

***

Grayson woke slowly, his eyes flickering against the lights of the infirmary, and Damian forced himself to sit up straight, to smile a greeting, refusing to press a hand against his newly stitched up wound, as revealing that weakness seemed pointless.

"We found you," he informed Grayson.

Grayson groaned and rolled to his side, only Damian’s quick reflexes keeping him from hitting the floor.

That, more than anything else, crushed the last pieces of hope in Damian’s heart that this Grayson was _his_ Grayson.

"Thanks," Grayson grumbled, sitting up with Damian’s assistance. "I’ve got to get home, I’ve got—"

"We also found the child," Damian said, crossing his arms over his chest. "He is sleeping; it’s almost sunrise."

"Oh," Grayson said. "Thanks?"

Damian nodded.

"Look, kiddo, it’s really nice to you know, not be in a cage about to be sold for my kidneys or something, but I—" He looked up at that moment. "Where... what is this place?"

"Home," Damian said, then he bit his lip. "Except—my apologies, Grayson. This is _my_ home, though you are of course welcome to stay as long as you like. You are still recovering."

"Holy cow," Brown said, coming inside and setting a tray with food and beverage on the table next to the infirmary cot. "Did you just apologize, Dami? I didn’t know you knew how to do that. Can you say it again? Only wait until I have my phone out; literally no one is going to believe me."

Damian scowled at her.

"Hey," Grayson said. "Don’t be like that."

Damian turned his withering stare on Grayson, who just made a face at him. He gestured at the tray. "This for me?"

"Well, no one else down here is suffering from mild dehydration and somewhat less mild malnutrition, so yeah. But Dami’s 16, _and_ he just had a blood transfusion, so watch the food. He’s a _hoarder_."

"I am _not_ ," Damian hissed, launching himself at her in a frontal attack which she sidestepped easily, almost twisting him to the ground, except he’d seen the move coming, so he pivoted back and got her with a roundhouse kick to the thigh, which had her clutching her leg and laughing. He made an aborted motion to check his stitches, but caught himself before his hand was halfway to his chest.

"Who _are_ you people?" Grayson asked around a mouthful of sandwich, his eyes wide and curious and _familiar_.

Brown froze and turned to him, a carefully guarded expression on her face that made Damian shove her out the door.

Grayson, or whoever this not-Grayson was, was _his_ responsibility, and he would not inflict it on anyone else.

***

"So when this universe’s Dick Grayson died, it made it possible for me to evacuate my reality," Grayson was explaining. "And Tommy never existed, so I could bring him, but uh—my wife is still alive here, so. So she stayed behind. It’s a pretty amazing piece of technology; I just wish I knew how many of us made it, you know?"

Damian nodded, carefully noting everything for his report on the case and checking on his father’s itinerary for the fifteenth time since he’d logged into the system. It all lined up quite well with his initial speculation. Clearly this Grayson was as lacking in subtlety as his had been.

 _This universe’s_ , he corrected himself firmly. People were not possessions, and to treat them as such showed an unhealthy amount of nostalgia.

"I’m sorry," Damian said quietly.

"Why?" Grayson asked. ‘You rescued me, you fed me, you babysat my kid, and I was pretty rude to you."

"No," Damian said, biting his lip. "If I could have better covered up the details of Richard’s death, I could have—"

"You’re sixteen," Grayson said, resting a warm, familiar hand on Damian’s shoulder. "You were what, twelve when he died? if that? What could you have done differently?"

Damian shook his head. It wasn’t his _age_ that had affected things, it was his _death_.

"If I had _been there_ ," Damian said, rounding on Grayson, "Richard would never have died and you would never have come to _my_ universe, you—you— _imposter!_ "

He fled the infirmary and grabbed Todd’s motorcycle, revving it obnoxiously before tearing out of the cave and away from the city.

He was going fast enough that the wind stung his eyes and made them water.

***

The sound of the motorcycle departing was still echoing through the Batcave when Dick had another dark haired boy warily approach him.

"Sorry about Damian, he’s..." the boy shrugged and shook his head. "He gets called the Demon Brat to his face, so I mean. That was... pretty normal. Now that he’s no longer uh... interrogating you, you want to head upstairs? Alfred got you a bedroom set up next to the nursery, so you can see where your son is right now."

"Sure, sounds great," Dick said, feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. He wanted to justify Damian’s behavior to this kid whose name he didn’t even know, but he’d only known Damian for ten minutes. This kid was probably his brother and had therefore known him his whole _life_ and would know better about what was going on with him than Dick possibly could.

He wasn’t expecting the upstairs. It was opulent and antique and _huge_ , and certainly he’d known that Wayne Manor would house the Batcave; he’d even experienced it in his home universe, but this...

"How many of you _are_ there?" he asked, watching as another dark-haired man darted past them and through a door, the overwhelming smell of cigarettes lingering on the air behind him.

"Uh, it kind of depends how you count. There’s... Dick Grayson. You, sort of. He was the first," the boy said, sounding oddly reverent of someone that Dick actively had a hard time believing existed. "And then Jason, who just ran by. And me, I’m uh, I’m Tim. And of course you know Damian, and then there’s Cassandra who is... I think she’s off tattling to Bruce, actually."

"Bruce?" Dick said. He’d _known_ , oh how he’d known, with newspapers and magazines all emblazoned with his name and his story, that it had been Thomas Wayne who had died in that alley in this universe, but.

But Bruce. Alive, and older than Dick (not an immortalized ten year old in a coffin built of guilt and broken dreams and _justice_ ) and potentially _here_ made his blood run cold.

It was too much like disrespecting the dead.

"Yeah, he adopted us. And then there are Stephanie and Babs, who he did not adopt but who—" Tim shrugged. "They’re ours too."

Tim flung open the doors to a room and stepped inside, and Dick followed him in to see an older man curled in a window seat, and _Tommy_.

"Oh," Dick whispered, everything in him running out at that sight, like Tommy had been the only thing keeping him going...

(And he had, not just while he’d been trapped in that warehouse, but before that, for weeks, for months. For Tommy’s entire life, in fact.)

"Yeah. Hey, uh, Alfred, come on. Dick needs his beauty sleep."

The older man stirred and smiled at Dick, transferring his son back into his arms without any protest, and Dick stumbled over to the bed and fell into it, still holding securely onto his son.

He didn’t even hear them close the door.

***

He took the motorcycle out of the city until it was just a smudge of light on the sky, and then he pulled off the highway and followed a familiar road, all crumbling asphalt and weeds, until he came to the ancient picnic table and firepit.

He walked to the edge of the cliff and sat down on the familiar flat rock, scuffing his heels in the dirt and leaning back on his good arm.

Damian was not sentimental enough to think of the spot as _his_ , for surely hundreds of other people had used it in the years since people had first started roaming this area, but it was peaceful, and silent in the predawn light, and—

And the silence was broken by the rumble of another motorcycle, so he twisted to check the identity of the newcomer.

When he recognized her, he sighed and relaxed again, resigned to her presence and his fate.

Cassandra was both the most and least tactile of them all, and she sat down next to him on his rock, so her side was pressed warmly against his and her shoulder nudged gently against his upper arm.

"Found you," she said.

"I wasn’t hiding," he told her, but he was lying and she would know as much.

"It’s scary," she said. "He is and he isn’t."

"It’s _fine_ ," Damian insisted. Then, he shook his head. "If I hadn’t been looking for him, it would never have mattered," he said. "Brown was upset."

"You were hurt," Cassandra explained.

"No," Damian said. "After. When he didn’t recognize her, in the Cave. She was upset. I could have..."

Cassandra shrugged. "Too late."

From anyone else, Damian would not have accepted that, but Cassandra knew better than him the costs of regret, so he nodded.

"Too late," he agreed.

"You’re hurt," she said. Unwilling, his hand moved to the stitched up wound to rub at the edges, making the pain spark up bright and _present_.

She took his hand and moved it over several inches, so it was laying flat against his heart.

He laughed. "Fair enough," he said.

She smiled at him, teeth glinting white in the gray predawn.

"I used to wish that Father had found a way to bring _him_ back, instead of me," Damian said.

"Now?"

"At this very moment? I wish that he’d never found a way to bring _anyone_ back, and that that other Grayson’s machine had never worked."

"Hmm," she said.

"At least then we’d be together," Damian murmured defensively.

"Or nothing at all," she said, and Damian shivered.

"Better than this," Damian snapped.

"At least he _is_ ," she replied. " _That_ is better."

"I don’t know him!" Damian protested.

"Lie," Cassandra said.

Damian scoffed and kicked at the dirt.

"He doesn’t know _me_ ," he corrected.

"Teach him," she replied, as if it were that simple.

He scoffed again, and she stood up and grabbed his hand. Grudgingly, he let her pull him to his feet and over to the motorcycle.

***

Cassandra made him spar with her until the anger had truly run dry, until he was tired and sweaty and aching, and then she smiled at him.

"Tommy needs breakfast," she said, and he nodded and rubbed the sweat out of his eyes.

He showered upstairs, in the privacy and silence of his room. He thought about his Father and about whether he’d seen Grayson yet, and then he thought about Grayson.

Frowning, he finally shut off the spray and dressed, and then he went to check on Grayson and his son.

Grayson was shirtless in the bed, covers tangled around his waist, one arm draped protectively over Tommy.

His skin was mottled with red marks that were bruising to purple, but the swelling all seemed to indicate that the wounds were superficial, and the livid coloring did nothing to hide the fact that this Grayson had lived a very different life from Damian’s Richard.

Damian took a step closer, wondering at a spot that was rippled and marred. It had to be decades old, but it looked like a burn scar. He _knew_ what it must be from, as well as he knew his own mother, but he also knew, with the same unswerving certainty, that no equivalent mark had existed on his Richard’s skin.

He took another step forward, then reached out, fingertip barely brushing the scar before he jerked his hand back to his chest and cleared his throat.

Tommy was watching him with a vacuous toddler’s smile.

"Ugh," Grayson said, eyes flickering open.

"Sorry," Damian replied. "Alfred will have breakfast on the table. Are you hungry?"

"No," Grayson replied. "Ugh. I’ve got to get Tommy fed."

"I’ll take him," Damian said. Tommy was watching him with bright, aware eyes, and when Damian reached for him, he put his arms up.

Damian winced at the weight when his wound pulled, and Grayson yawned and grimaced.

"Sure," Grayson said. "I’ll come find you in a minute."

"You are injured," Damian said. "Go back to sleep."

"First of all," Grayson said, protesting. "You’re sixteen and I’m an adult. Second," he added, voice raising as Damian retreated toward the door. " _Second_ , you were _shot_. Tim told me I didn’t imagine that!"

He hollered the last through the door, and Damian smiled down at the top of Tommy’s head as they made their way down the stairs and to the kitchen.

Damian had just gotten Tommy set up in his high chair with some cheerios and bananas when his father came down for breakfast.

"Damian," he asked from the doorway to the kitchen. "Why is there a toddler at the table?"

"He is eating breakfast," Damian informed his father. "Pennyworth has fixed a place for you; he’s hardly interfering."

"Everyone has told me," his father said slowly, rubbing at the place where his brows met on his forehead and shaking his head, "To ask _you_ if I want to know how things were in my absence."

Damian took a sip of orange juice to steel himself, even as his father pulled out a chair and sat down across the table from him.

"Even _Jason_ said as much, and Jason hasn’t bothered to say actual words to me in over two years," his father continued, looking very displeased.

Damian slathered butter on his toast rather pointedly. "We discovered a ring of traffickers," he began warily. "I may have been... injured... in the ensuing battle."

" _Damian_ ," his father growled, and at that very moment, a sleep-mussed Grayson entered the kitchen.

"Do I smell coffee?" Grayson asked, and his father lurched out of his seat with none of the grace he should have commanded as Batman.

" _Dick_ ," his father rasped, the readily apparent emotion making Damian want to flush with embarrassment on his behalf.

Damian risked a glance up at the two men, and Grayson was smiling a sheepish smile. "Hi, good morning. I uh, accidentally picked this universe to flee to awhile back, and then Damian kidnapped my son. So hi. I’m not him though, I’m sorry."

His father’s face was a rictus of agony and delight.

Damian collected his plate and stood, but before he could turn away from the table, Pennyworth's voice broke the quiet.

"I believe the table is for breakfast, Master Damian," he said, and Damian froze before he very slowly lowered himself back to the chair. "If there are discussions to be had, they should be moved to the sitting room, yes?"

Both his father and Grayson held one another's gaze for a moment, and then Grayson smiled, slow and slight and not as warm as Damian had grown used to seeing _before_.

"Sounds good," Grayson said, and he took the seat close to Damian. Doubtless, Damian should have rearranged them so that the child was between them, but Grayson's hand brushed against his back as he sat, and Damian could feel his breath catching at the sensation.

Warm, heavy against his back, and when was the last time Grayson had touched him?

No, he knew _exactly_ the last time Grayson had touched him.

The child reached for toast and Damian diverted his attention to supervising _that_ just because it was easier than handling everything else.

The room hadn't changed at all since the last time Damian had sat here, but somehow, it seemed like everything had changed.

"Here, habibti," he murmured. "You'll like this."

***

It was some six months later, with Damian and Tommy both sitting on the bed playing with toys that Alfred had found somewhere, that it occurred to Dick that he hadn't left.

He hadn't left, and he hadn't even considered it really. He leaned in the doorway, watching them. Damian knew he was there; Dick could tell in the way that Damian's back had stiffened for that split second before he relaxed again. Because the kid was always running at full focus. Always in mid-swing, convinced he had to catch the next bar himself instead of trusting that a partner was there to grab his hands.

"You patrolling tonight?"

Damian looked up then, and his face shuttered in the way it always did when Dick mentioned his being Robin. 

There was a scar on Damian’s chest that Dick may as well have put there himself, just peeking out of the edge of his shirt right now, that reminded him of the shouting matches he’d had with Bruce over Damian being _sixteen_ and _too young_.

Now, months later, he knew that Damian Wayne had never in his life been _allowed_ to be too young, and Dick was used to his patrolling, and to his violence, and to his using Dick’s mother’s name for him to do _good_ where he thought he was irredeemably _bad_.

Before Damian could say anything, Dick smiled, and he tilted his head slightly.

"Enjoy it. I'll see you for breakfast when you get back."

Tension drained out of Damian, and he stood up, crossed the room, and stopped in the doorway beside Dick for just a second. There was the barest brush of his hand against Dick's, and then he stalked down the hallway.

Dick smiled, and he dropped down on the bed beside Tommy. "What were you guys playing with?" he asked lowly, and he couldn't stop the chuckle as Tommy shoved the toy bird into his hands.

A robin.

**Author's Note:**

> Amazing art by: [impalafortrenchcoats](http://impalafortrenchcoats.tumblr.com)
> 
> Please remember to [let her know](http://impalafortrenchcoats.tumblr.com/post/132320593871/art-submission-for-this-years-dcu-bang-story) if you liked it!


End file.
